As the use of maps for displaying information has increased in popularity, so has the volume and complexity of information to be displayed. Thus, it is now more difficult to take in the wide range of data that should be implemented or embedded on the map without the user desirous to view the map becoming confused or overwhelmed by the display of the rendered map.
This problem is particularly acute in the field of map-based or location-based services, where the ever increasingly detailed nature of the information to be displayed, together with the potentially limitless number of resources from which data is gathered, combine to make it extremely challenging to display such information on the map in a logical manner that is accessible and, more particularly, useful to users.
Furthermore, some users may not even require all of the information that is being displayed to them on the map for their specific needs. This may be problematic since transmitting all the information to be displayed may require a considerable amount of time, especially if some information to be displayed ought to be interactive or dynamic. For example, map applications or web browsers typically download map data to a client device through a network in response to an indication that a user is desirous of viewing the map. A conventional method for downloading map data is to have the client device communicate the request for data to a remote server via the network, which, in response, transmits all map data at once to the client device.
Map data may generally be stored in blocks known as “map tiles”, where the number of map tiles increases with zoom level. The remote server provides all map tiles for a particular location or region to the client device for storage and/or rendering of the map on the client device. Additional information for embedding interactive maps, such as additional resources and additional application programming interfaces (APIs), may also be requested by the client device. However, the larger the number of map tiles and additional data necessary to display an interactive map, the longer the retrieving and the rendering time, especially if the network is slow or not stable.